Private jet from London to New York

A private jet from London to New York is a long sector, but not one that pushes an aircraft to its limit. The great-circle distance from London Luton to Teterboro is about 2,997 nautical miles, inside the range that manufacturers publish for both the heavy and the ultra long range classes. The airport pair, the number of passengers and the direction you fly shape the rest. JETAURA arranges this route as a broker. The flight itself is operated by the aviation operator, not by us.

The route at a glance

How long is the flight from London to New York?

The great-circle distance from London Luton to Teterboro is 2,997 nautical miles. At a typical cruise of Mach 0.85, that works out at six hours and nine minutes of still-air cruise time. Your real flight runs longer, because the track across the North Atlantic departs from the great circle and the westbound leg meets a headwind.

Here is the arithmetic in full, so you can check it.

Step one: the distance

The UK AIP publishes the aerodrome reference point for London Luton as 51°52'29"N / 000°22'06"W, and the FAA's National Flight Data Center gives Teterboro as 40°51'00.367"N / 74°03'39"W. The great-circle distance between those two points on the WGS-84 ellipsoid is 2,997 nautical miles. Farnborough comes out three nautical miles shorter. A spherical model gives 2,989 NM, a difference of 0.27 percent. This distance is our calculation from official coordinates, not a figure published by either authority.

Step two: the speed

Manufacturers quote cruise speeds in Mach. For the ultra long range class the typical figure is Mach 0.85, stated on two independent manufacturer data sheets. Both are named in the sources below. To turn Mach into knots you need the speed of sound at cruise altitude. EUROCONTROL's Base of Aircraft Data gives it as 295.07 metres per second in the isothermal layer between 11 and 20 kilometres, where the standard atmosphere holds temperature constant at 216.65 K. That is 573.6 knots. Mach 0.85 of that is 487.5 knots true airspeed.

Step three: the division

2,997 nautical miles at 487.5 knots is 6 hours and 9 minutes.

Your actual flight will take longer. It leaves out taxi, climb, descent and every minute on the ground.

Why this route gets chartered

The two cities are in different time zones, and the direction you fly decides whether the day works for you or against you. A charter also moves the departure to your schedule and changes which airports are open to you at both ends. The general point holds here: private jets can use a wide choice of airports depending on the aircraft type, including smaller airports that scheduled aircraft do not serve regularly.

Why the westbound flight takes longer

NOAA describes jet streams as "bands of strong wind that generally blow from west to east all across the globe". The consequence, in NOAA's own words: "an airplane flying a route from west to east can generally make the trip faster than an airplane traveling the same route east to west."

London to New York is the westbound leg. You fly into that prevailing flow, so it usually takes longer than the same sector eastbound. The return is quicker. How much quicker depends on the day, the altitude flown and the routing the crew is given, and no answer puts a number on that in advance.

Westbound you gain hours on the clock, so the afternoon you land into feels borrowed. Eastbound takes those hours back.

Which aircraft class fits 2,997 nautical miles

JETAURA does not own aircraft and does not operate flights, so the question here is what the class can do.

The "yes" in the bottom two rows rests on published range figures we cite below. The "no" in the top two rests on what those classes are built for, not on a range figure we can point to.

So which of the two should you ask for

Both cover the distance on paper.

The great circle is the shortest line on a globe, not the track you fly, so the real distance is longer than the 2,997 nautical miles above. Westbound you are flying into the prevailing flow, and the fuel to push through it comes out of the same tank as the fuel that gets you there.

None of those rules the heavy class out. Together they mean its margin is thinner westbound than the headline figure suggests. Where the margin gets tight, the alternatives are a fuel stop, which costs ground time and a second set of airport charges, or a lighter load.

The Teterboro weight limit below applies to what the aircraft actually weighs on the day. Fuel for a long westbound leg is part of that weight. So on this route the aircraft you pick and the New York airport you pick are not independent decisions, and it is worth telling us early if Teterboro is fixed for you.

Every range figure a manufacturer publishes comes with conditions attached: a stated number of passengers and crew, defined fuel reserves, standard atmosphere, a specific cruise setting. One manufacturer labels its own maximum range "theoretical" in the footnote, which tells you how to read the rest of the sheet. Change the passenger load, the weather, the routing or the payload and the real figure moves. Whether a particular aircraft can fly this sector nonstop on your date, westbound, with your group and bags, is a performance calculation the operator runs for that aircraft. No brochure answers that.

The airports at each end

Both ends are covered in depth elsewhere on this site.

London

Five airports around London handle business aviation, each documented in the UK AIP and compared on our London page. Luton sits north of the city, Farnborough to the south west, and those are the two we used for the distance calculation above. Across the Atlantic they differ by three nautical miles. Your drive to them differs by a great deal more. The runway matters too, for an aircraft leaving with a full transatlantic fuel load. More on the five London business aviation airports. Those same airports serve far shorter runs, where none of the range arithmetic above applies: London to Ibiza is decided by different things entirely.

New York

Four airports are realistic options, set out with their FAA data on our New York page, and Teterboro has a weight rule that bites on this sector. The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey applies a 100,000-pound limit at Teterboro, and it applies it to the aircraft's actual operating weight, not to its maximum takeoff weight. Fuel for nearly 3,000 nautical miles is heavy, and it counts towards that limit alongside your passengers and their bags. An aircraft that is comfortably under the limit on a European sector can sit against it on this one. Where that happens, a different New York airport is one option and a lighter load is another. More on the New York airports and the Teterboro weight limit.

The FAA lists Teterboro as a landing rights airport, on data effective 3 September 2026. Under 19 CFR § 122.1, a landing rights airport is "any airport, other than an international airport or user fee airport, at which flights from a foreign area are given permission by Customs to land." Permission is therefore part of the arrival planning. U.S. Customs and Border Protection states in its Teterboro fact sheet that the "aircraft operator must request CBP FIS preference at the time of the landing rights request", and that all crew and passengers are processed inside the federal inspection facility.

We do not give customs or immigration advice. For anything binding, CBP is the authority to ask. If you want the general mechanics first, we have written them up separately: how customs works on a private flight and which documents you need.

What drives the cost of this route

There is no flat price for a transatlantic charter, and we do not publish one. We can name the factors, because on this sector some of them weigh more.

• Nearly 3,000 nautical miles sets the aircraft class before anything else does, and the class is one of the factors that shapes your quote.
• More passengers and more baggage mean more weight, which on this sector runs into both the fuel load and the Teterboro limit.
• Demand on your date changes what is available.
• Positioning weighs heavily on this route: if the aircraft is not already where you are, someone has to fly it across an ocean first, and that repositioning leg is a transatlantic sector in its own right.
• Airport charges, which differ across the five London and four New York options and are therefore part of the airport choice.
• Additional services you ask for, arranged with the operator or with service partners.

Your quote is built for this route, this date and this group.

Empty legs on this route

An empty leg arises when an aircraft flies without passengers back to its next assignment. They can be less expensive than a regular charter. They are also tied to the operator's existing flight plan, which means the route and the departure time are often less flexible, and an empty leg can be dropped or moved if the underlying charter changes.

If that trade works for you, tell us the route and your time window, and we will come back to you when something suitable appears.

How a request works

You send us your travel details. We check available aircraft. You receive suitable options and an individual offer. After your confirmation we coordinate the next steps with the responsible operator.

Your enquiry is not binding. A booking is only made once you confirm.

Questions about this route

How long is a private jet flight from London to New York?

The great-circle distance from London Luton to Teterboro is about 2,997 nautical miles. At a typical cruise of Mach 0.85, roughly 487 knots true airspeed, that is 6 hours 9 minutes of still-air cruise time. The real flight takes longer and varies with aircraft type, routing and wind, and the westbound leg generally takes longer than the eastbound one.

Can a private jet fly London to New York nonstop?

Yes, on published figures. The great-circle distance sits below the maximum range that manufacturers state for both the heavy and the ultra long range classes. Those figures assume a defined passenger load, fuel reserves and cruise setting. Whether a specific aircraft can fly your date nonstop is a performance calculation the operator runs for that aircraft.

Why does the westbound flight take longer than eastbound?

Because you are flying into the prevailing wind. NOAA describes jet streams as bands of strong wind that "generally blow from west to east", and notes that an aircraft flying west to east can generally make the trip faster than the same route flown east to west. London to New York is the westbound leg. How much longer depends on the day and the routing.

How much baggage can you take on this route?

That depends on the aircraft, and on this sector the dependence is sharper than usual. A long leg means a lot of fuel, and fuel and payload draw on the same limit. The same aircraft that takes your full group and their bags on a short European sector may need a compromise on a transatlantic one. Tell us what you are carrying and the team can search against it from the start.

Where do you clear customs on a London to New York private flight?

On arrival in the United States. The FAA lists Teterboro as a landing rights airport on data effective 3 September 2026. A flight from abroad needs permission from Customs to land there. CBP states that all crew and passengers are processed inside the federal inspection facility, and that the aircraft operator requests the CBP facility preference together with the landing rights request. For binding answers, CBP is the authority.

Request this route

Departure and destination are fixed on this page. We still need the date and the number of passengers. On this sector, five more things move the answer, so tell us what you already know:

• your time window on the day, not just the date
• what you are carrying, including ski bags, golf clubs or anything outsized
• where in or around London you are actually starting from
• whether Teterboro is fixed for you, or whether another New York airport is open
• whether you have a day of flexibility either side, which is what makes an empty leg possible at all

Our aviation team will check available aircraft and come back to you with suitable options and an individual offer. As above, nothing is binding until you confirm.

Request London to New York → · charter@flyjetaura.com

You can also start from private jet charter with JETAURA if you would rather describe the trip in general terms first.

Sources

• UK AIP (NATS/AIS): EGGW London Luton, AD 2.2 and EGLF Farnborough, AD 2.2, AIRAC cycle effective 3 September 2026. Aerodrome reference points used for the distance calculation.
• FAA National Flight Data Center: Teterboro (TEB), data effective 3 September 2026 to 1 October 2026. Reference point and landing rights status.
• EUROCONTROL Experimental Centre: User Manual for the Base of Aircraft Data (BADA) Revision 3.7, Section 3.2 "Standard Atmosphere", Eq. 3.2-10, March 2009. The speed of sound above the tropopause, 295.07 m/s at a constant 216.65 K, which is what we used to convert Mach into knots. This source covers that conversion figure only; the cruise Mach number is the manufacturers' and the flight time is our own arithmetic.
• NOAA NESDIS: What Is the Jet Stream?, 31 August 2025. Direction of jet streams and the resulting difference between eastbound and westbound flights. The statement is global, not specific to the North Atlantic.
• U.S. Customs and Border Protection: Teterboro Airport General Aviation Fact Sheet, 1 December 2025. Federal inspection facility processing and the landing rights request.
• 19 CFR § 122.1, 2025 edition. Definition of a landing rights airport.
• Aircraft class range and cruise figures: Gulfstream G800 product page and Bombardier Global 8000 product page, both retrieved 16 September 2026; Bombardier Challenger 650 product page for the heavy-class reference. Manufacturer figures apply under the conditions each manufacturer states, including passenger and crew load, NBAA IFR reserves and a defined cruise setting; Bombardier labels its own maximum range "theoretical".